‘in the library.’ My mother leads me and I lay Ellen down on the bed that’s been put in there. Her eyes are shut and her mouth is slack. My mother waves me away and I go back outside to bring in my car and close the gates, then wait in the kitchen sitting by the Aga, my eyes aching. My mother, when she comes in twenty minutes later, frowns and shakes her head.

‘Is she OK?’ I ask, stupidly.

‘Of course she’s not fucking OK.’ She crosses to the half-glazed door and looks over the valley, turns back to me. 'I'm sorry. I just worry, that’s all.’

I walk over and hug her, hold her so closely that I can feel the rhythm of the egg cups of her heart filling and spilling.

When I was young my mother was always trying to hug me, trying to cuddle me and always I would slip away from her, twist away from her hand reaching out to ruffle my salt-thick hair. She’d laugh and pinch me gently instead. But there were nights when I’d go to her and knock aside her book, to sit in her lap, for a moment, for an hour, and she’d talk to me about what she’d done that day, stroking my arms, examining my hands until I’d had enough. Always and only until I had had enough. The selfishness of the young. Now I know that she had others who held her, who stroked her, and that makes me mind less about that selfishness. Once we’d left the hospital we hardly ever hugged, both nervous of touch. Aloof, Sonja had called me, but I know that my mother and I thought we didn’t deserve it — we were too disfigured, too mutilated. Too defenceless, too unworthy.

I lead my mother to a chair, sit her down, make coffee, sandwiches. She eats a few mouthfuls, then lights a cigarette. 'I’m sorry,’ she says. ‘Not much of a home-coming.’

‘That’s all right - it’s not my home.’

She smiles weakly. ‘It’s lovely to see you.’

‘I didn’t know Ellen was that bad.’

‘She’s got worse in the last few days. She’ll sleep for a few hours and then she’ll be livelier.’

‘Where are the dogs?’

My mother twiddles the invisible volume knob and I know that I’ve been shouting. ‘They’re in with her — they stay with her.’ She glances at the clock. ‘They need to be walked - you want to come?’

I nod. My mother collects the leads, puts on wellingtons, and I go into the library. Ellen is sleeping and her face has been cleared of its pain. She looks like the Ellen I remember playing cards with on the deck when I was a boy. Her skin may be thinner, her bones nearer the surface, but her mouth, her eyes, are at rest. I want to do something for her but all I can do is leave her. I search for my worrystone.